Just when you were probably thinking that politicians couldn’t possibly be any clearer, even if we’d let them, J-Sec Davey Lidz this week uber-clarified that the small clams limit will definitely be generously up-sized to £5k for RTA and £2k for PI, various.
What even the Lidster couldn’t yet clarify to the Just Ice Select Committee, however, was exactly when this might be happening. The one point on which he could literally not have been clearer was that he has whiplash well and truly in his sights.
Something, he said, would have to be done and he was the boy to do it. These are not cases, he argued, “where it ought normally to be necessary to have legal representation.”
This is surely right, especially in an era where affording ordinary people the luxury of legal representation is harder and harder to justify, whatever the circumstances.
High time, most right minded observers would surely agree, we start rolling back the obscene excesses of legal representation to which our pampered society has grown accustomed in recent years.
Rather than getting all legalistic about trifling PI claims, Lidz suggested, claimants should simply present the evidence of any supposed injury they’ve incurred and see if it qualifies for some kind of pay-out based on a predetermined tariff.
Naturally, that wasn’t good enough for some people. Oh, no! Some chap called Qamar Anwar, claiming to represent some shadowy group called Thirst4Lawyers, attempted to characterise Lidz’ comments a “blow for access to justice.”
“For most people, a claim worth £5,000 is not low value,” he suggested outlandishly, going on to insist that “96% of road traffic accident related PI claims are under £5,000, so the impact could be huge.”
In reality, the only significant impact will be on greedy lawyers who prey on accident-prone proles who, once they’ve understood the matter correctly, will be perfectly happy to surrender any right to legal representation (and some ill-deserved cash bonanza) for the good of those who actually pay the taxes to which unscrupulous lawyers have been only too happy to help themselves and their ‘clients’ for far too long.
In a gruesome illustration of the depths to which these legal types will nowadays sink in their grubby pursuit of a few measly pence, Anwar had the temerity to allege that “Unfortunately, the government’s allegiances seem to rest with the insurers, not innocent accident victims.”
That seems a pretty shabby charge to bring when PM Theresa May herself has clearly clarified to ordinary Brits that: “The government I lead will be driven not by the interests of the privileged few, but by yours. When we take the big calls, we’ll think not of the powerful, but you. When we pass new laws, we’ll listen not to the mighty but to you.”
But presumably bombastic ‘people’s champion’ Mr Anwar wasn’t listening when she clarified that.
Out chasing ambulances that day, no doubt!
Former Bankstone director AJ Jones demonstrates the concepts of ‘small’ and ‘far away’ (click to view)
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